ACATALEPSY ➺ loki

42 , preparations

It turned out, I had indeed been proved wrong about Tony's next move after the battle. He didn't want to throw a party, instead... he had apparently proposed to one Pepper Potts in the time that Wanda and I had gone onto the roof for, leaving the whole team in a state of utter shock and happiness for the two people over the next few hours. I would admit, I had not seen that coming... not at all. But there was also a strange sort of joy to not know everything that was going to happen for once, which isn't something I would have ever thought I liked, but it seemed that when the threat wasn't the whole world maybe getting destroyed, a bit of surprise once and again wasn't the worst feeling.

Even better, Tony and Pepper had decided to host their wedding exactly one week from that day, which would be the 13th of December. Natasha and Steve tried their best to convince the two that it wasn't a good idea to host such an event with so little notice, but they seemed very much set of it already, Tony even having gone ahead and bought a cabin somewhere in the woods that looked very similar to the one he and Pepper had been living in during endgame, declaring that that would be the venue for the wedding. With a jolt, I realised that this time I wouldn't be attending Tony Starks funeral at a cabin in the woods, but instead his wedding, which was one of the happiest thoughts I had had in a long time. I truly was excited for the two of them and couldn't wait for the day to come, but at the same time, Natasha and I had been asked to help out with the planning for the event, which was an honour, but at the same time I immediately started stressing about getting everything as perfect as I could. Both Tony and Pepper had been through so much, they more than deserved a perfect wedding day—and I would do whatever I could to give that to them.

But in the middle of all the wedding planning, I also knew that I had to deal with the person, or, people, who were out to kill me. Loki had tried to get a chance to speak to me about the inevitable—but I didn't want to go and find whoever it was, and so like a fool I tried to avoid the conversation with him for as long as I could by simple avoiding the man all together. I was more worried about the 'having to tell all the others about the two guys who had maybe tried to kill me in the compound while they had been away' part, if I was being honest, because I knew that they would freak out over it, which in turn would make me freak out. I had decided that whenever I finally chose to stop running away from the thing, I'd ask Loki if we could both just keep the whole mission between us until we had found the person behind the whole thing, but I also knew that asking him that would mean... well, speaking to him. And I would be lying if I said that the people trying to kill me were the only reason I was avoiding him.

Truth was I was nothing more than a wimp. I was terrified to talk to Loki—scared of my mind making up more shit that would just get in the way of our friendship, so I decided to hide from him. There was no way that the tactic I was taking was going to end well, and I knew that, but I still couldn't get myself to speak to him normally. I didn't trust myself to not say something stupid in front of him and ruin things for both of us. The last thing I needed was to make things awkward between myself and him—I would much rather just let things play out the way that they had been for the past month or so and vanish through whatever portal Tony had managed to make before things got strange between me and anyone. I wanted... I wanted them to all remember me as that one random girl who helped save a few lives that one time—not the girl who found the people she had been watching for years and immediately fell for one of the 'villains' in the story. It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. And I wasn't going to ruin what I had managed to get.

I knew I would have to deal with talking to Loki about the people who we had to go find at some point, and I would deal with that—but for now... I had a wedding to help plan, and I was going to be meeting with some companies who would be doing the decoration for the actual wedding with Natasha and Wanda that morning. Sighing, I slipped out of my warm bed sheets and almost instantly started shivering as I was greeted by the harsh winter air—only finding some peace after I had sprinted across my room into the bathroom and run my shower until there was steaming hot water fogging up my mirrors. A few minutes later, I had to force myself out of the comforting water and get dressed in a mint sweater and black skirt, wanting to look at least slightly presentable during the meeting with very fancy event organisers.